The Cruelest Month: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel

by Louise Penny

  ‘Ginkgo? A few, not many. They’re mostly from Asia, I think. Very old trees.’

  ‘You mean they live a long time?’ asked Beauvoir.

  ‘That too, though not as long as sequoias. Some of them are thousands of years old, can you believe it? Love to have a conversation with one of them. No, a ginkgo doesn’t last that long, but it’s the oldest tree known. Prehistoric. Considered a living fossil. Imagine that.’

  Gamache was impressed. Sandon knew a lot about the ginkgo tree. The ancient ginkgo family that produced ephedra.

  A newspaper was folded neatly at his desk when they arrived back at the Incident Room. It was five o’clock and Robert Lemieux was working on his computer. He looked up and waved as they came in, his eyes falling on the newspaper as though commiserating with Gamache.

  Jean Guy Beauvoir stood beside the chief as he reached for the paper. Gamache was reminded of a nature show he once saw about gorillas. When threatened they ran forward, focusing on the attacker, screaming and pounding their chests. But every now and then they’d reach out to touch the gorilla next to them. To make sure they weren’t alone.

  Beauvoir was the gorilla next to him.

  There, on the front page, was a picture of Gamache looking foolish, his eyes half-closed, his mouth in a strange grimace.

  SOÛL! insisted the type underneath, in capital letters. Drunk!

  ‘I see you’re a drunken, blackmailing, pimping murderer,’ said Beauvoir.

  ‘A Renaissance man,’ said Gamache, shaking his head. But he was relieved. He first skimmed the article looking for Daniel, Annie, Reine-Marie. But all he found was his own name and Arnot’s. Always linked, as though one didn’t exist without the other.

  He called his family and spent the next half-hour catching up with them, making sure all was as well as could be.

  It was a strange world, he realized as he and Beauvoir made their way back to the B. & B. with their dossiers and yearbooks, when a good day was one where he was only accused of drunken incompetence.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  For the first time in twenty-five years Clara Morrow closed the door to her studio. Olivier and Gabri were arriving. Armand Gamache and his inspector, Jean Guy Beauvoir, had just walked in. Myrna had arrived earlier with shepherd’s pie and a massive arrangement of flowers, branches in bud and what looked like a bonnet

  ‘There’s a gift in there for you,’ she said to Gamache.

  ‘Really?’ He hoped she didn’t mean the bonnet.

  Clara showed Jeanne Chauvet into the living room where everyone was massed. Gamache caught Clara’s eye and smiled his thanks. She smiled back but he thought she looked tired.

  ‘Are you all right?’ He took the tray of drinks from her and placed it on its normal spot on the piano.

  ‘Just a little stressed. Tried to paint this afternoon but Peter was right. Best not to try too hard if the muse isn’t there. Fortunately I had the dinner to concentrate on.’

  Clara looked as though she’d rather gnaw off her foot than be at this dinner party.

  Olivier took the ceramic bowl of home-made pâté from Gabri, who was supposed to circulate with it but had decided to stand by the fire and talk to Jeanne instead.

  ‘Pâté?’ he asked Beauvoir, who took a large slice of baguette and smeared it thickly.

  ‘So, I hear you’re a witch,’ Gabri said to Jeanne, and the room fell silent.

  ‘I prefer Wicca, but yes,’ said Jeanne matter-of-factly.

  ‘Pâté?’ asked Olivier, grateful to have the appetizers to hide behind. Would that they’d brought a horse.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Jeanne.

  Ruth arrived, stomping into the cheery living room. Beauvoir took the distraction as a chance to speak to Jeanne privately.

  ‘Agent Lemieux looked up your high school,’ he said, guiding her into a quiet corner.

  ‘Really? That’s interesting,’ though she didn’t look interested.

  ‘It was actually. There was no school.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘No Gareth James High in Montreal.’

  ‘But that’s impossible. I went to it.’ She seemed agitated, just the way Beauvoir wanted his suspects. He didn’t like this woman, this witch.

  ‘The school burned down twenty years ago. Convenient, don’t you think?’ He got up before she could respond.

  ‘Where’s my drink?’ Ruth limped over to the piano. ‘Wanted to get here earlier before you drank it all,’ she said to Gamache. Olivier was deeply grateful someone more maladroit than Gabri was finally in the room.

  ‘I’ve hidden bottles all over the house and if you’re nice to me, Madame Zardo,’ said Gamache, bowing slightly, ‘I might tell you where some are.’

  Ruth considered then seemed to conclude it was too much trouble. She grabbed what was a tumbler for water and handed it to Peter.

  ‘Scotch.’

  ‘How can you be a poet?’ Peter asked.

  ‘I’ll tell you how, I don’t waste good words on the likes of you.’ She took the tumbler and swallowed a gulp.

  ‘So why do you drink?’ she asked Gamache.

  ‘Voyons,’ said Beauvoir. ‘That newspaper article was a lie. He doesn’t drink.’

  ‘What newspaper article?’ asked Ruth. ‘And what’s that?’ She pointed to the Scotch in Gamache’s hand.

  ‘I drink to relax,’ said Gamache. ‘Why do you?’

  Ruth stared at him but what she saw were the two baby birds, tucked into their little beds in her oven, snug in warmed towels and water bottles she’d bought at Canadian Tire. She’d fed Rosa and tried to feed Lilium, but she hadn’t taken very much.

  Ruth had kissed them softly on their little fluffy heads, getting a slight film of dander on her thin, old lips. It’d been a while since she’d kissed anything. They smelled fresh and felt warm. Lilium had bent down and pecked at her hand slightly, as though kissing back. Ruth had meant to leave for Peter and Clara’s earlier, but had waited until Rosa and Lilium were asleep. She grabbed her kitchen timer and put two and a half hours on it, then slipped it into her moth-eaten cardigan.

  She took a deep sip of her Scotch, and thought about it. Why did she drink?

  ‘I drink so I don’t get mad,’ she said finally.

  ‘Get mad or go mad?’ mumbled Myrna. ‘Either way, it isn’t working.’

  Over at the sofa Gabri had corralled Jeanne again. ‘So what do witches do?’

  ‘Gabri, shouldn’t you be passing this round?’ Olivier tried to hand him the pâté again, but Gabri just took a scoop himself and left Olivier holding it.

  ‘We heal people.’

  ‘I thought you did, well, the opposite. Aren’t there wicked witches?’

  ‘Please dear Lord don’t let him welcome us to munchkin land,’ Olivier murmured to Peter. Both men moved away.

  ‘Some, but not as many as you might think,’ Jeanne smiled. ‘Witches are simply people with heightened intuition.’

  ‘So it’s not magic,’ said Beauvoir, listening despite himself.

  ‘We’re not conjuring anything that isn’t already there. We just see things others don’t.’

  ‘Like dead people?’ asked Gabri.

  ‘Oh, that’s nothing,’ said Ruth, shoving Myrna aside as she squeezed onto the sofa, bony elbows out. ‘I see them all the time.’

  ‘You do?’ asked Myrna.

  ‘I see them now,’ said Ruth and the room grew silent. Even Peter and Olivier drifted back.

  ‘Here?’ asked Clara. ‘In our house?’

  ‘Especially here,’ said Ruth.

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Right there,’ said Ruth and she raised one certain finger and pointed. At Gamache.

  There was an intake of breath and Gamache looked over at Beauvoir.

  ‘Dead? He’s dead?’ whispered Clara.

  ‘Dead? I thought you said dull. Never mind,’ said Ruth.

  ‘How can she be a poet?’ Peter asked Olivier and the two walked away again to examine Peter’s latest
jigsaw puzzle.

  ‘So who did it? Do you know yet who killed Madeleine?’ asked Ruth. ‘Or have you been too busy paying people off and drinking to actually do any work?’

  Beauvoir opened his mouth and Gamache held up his hand, reassuring him it was a joke.

  ‘We don’t know, but we’re getting close.’

  This was a surprise to Beauvoir, who tried not to show it.

  ‘Did you all know she’d had cancer?’ Gamache asked. Everyone looked at each other and nodded.

  ‘But that was a while ago,’ said Myrna.

  Gamache waited for more then decided he had to ask his question clearly.

  ‘Was she still in remission, as far as you know?’

  They looked perplexed and again searched out each other, passing glances in the sort of telepathy good friends have.

  ‘Never heard otherwise,’ said Peter. No one disagreed. Gamache and Beauvoir exchanged looks. Conversation started up again and Peter ducked into the kitchen to check on dinner.

  Gamache followed him and found Peter stirring the lamb stew. Gamache picked up a baguette and a bread knife and gestured to Peter, who smiled his thanks.

  The two worked quietly together, listening to the conversation in the next room.

  ‘Hear tomorrow’s supposed to be nice, finally,’ said Peter. ‘Sunny and warm.’

  ‘April’s like that, isn’t it?’ said Gamache, cutting the bread and putting it onto a tea towel nestled in a wooden bowl. Gamache lifted the towel and saw the signature burling of the wood. One of Sandon’s bowls.

  ‘Unpredictable, you mean?’ said Peter. ‘Difficult month.’

  ‘Sunny and warm one day then snow the next,’ agreed Gamache. ‘Shakespeare called it the uncertain glory of an April day.’

  ‘I prefer T. S. Eliot. The cruellest month.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘All those spring flowers slaughtered. Happens almost every year. They’re tricked into blooming, into coming out. Opening up. And not just the spring bulbs, but the buds on the trees. The rose bushes, everything. All out and happy. And then boom, a freak snowstorm kills them all.’

  Gamache had the feeling they weren’t talking about flowers any more.

  ‘But what would you have happen?’ he asked Peter. ‘They have to bloom, even if it’s for a short time. And they’ll be back next year.’

  ‘But not all.’ Peter turned to look at Gamache, the wooden spoon in the air dripping thick gravy. ‘Some never recover. We had the most beautiful rose bush just budding and a hard frost killed it a few years back.’

  ‘A killing frost,’ quoted Gamache. ‘It nips his root. And then he falls, as I do.’

  Peter was trembling.

  ‘Who’s falling, Peter? Is it Clara?’

  ‘No one’s falling. I won’t allow it.’

  ‘Strange in Canada, we talk all the time about the one thing we can’t control. The weather. We can’t stop a killing frost and we can’t stop the flowers from doing what they’re meant to do. Better to bloom even for an instant, if that’s your nature, than live forever in hiding.’

  ‘I don’t agree.’ Peter turned his back on his guest and practically puréed the stew.

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.’

  ‘You didn’t,’ said Peter to the wall.

  Gamache took the bread to the long pine table, set for dinner, then returned to the living room. He reflected on T. S. Eliot and thought the poet had called April the cruellest month not because it killed flowers and buds on the trees, but because sometimes it didn’t. How difficult it was for those who didn’t bloom when all about was new life and hope.

  ‘So let me get this straight,’ said Olivier.

  ‘He almost never says that,’ Gabri assured Clara then turned back to the platter of shrimp Olivier was trying to get him to pass round. Gabri took one.

  ‘Easter isn’t a Christian holiday?’ said Olivier.

  ‘Well, it is,’ said Jeanne. The little, nondescript woman had somehow managed to dominate the room full of strong personalities. She sat bunched into a corner of the sofa, squeezed between the arm and Myrna, and all eyes were on her. ‘But the early church didn’t know for sure when Christ was crucified so it chose a date, one that would fit into the pagan calendar of rituals as well.’

  ‘Why would they want to do that?’ asked Clara.

  ‘The early church needed converts to survive. It was a dangerous and fragile time. In order to win over the pagans it adopted some of their feasts and rituals.’

  ‘Church incense is like the smudging we do,’ agreed Myrna. ‘When we light dried herbs to cleanse a place.’ She turned to Clara, who nodded. But it was a comforting ritual full of joy, not the somber swinging of the church censer, glum and vaguely threatening. She’d never seen the two as similar and wondered how the priests would feel about the comparison. Or the witches.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Jeanne. ‘Same with the festivals. We sometimes call Christmas Yuletide.’

  ‘In some of the carols anyway,’ said Gabri.

  ‘And we have the Yule log,’ Olivier pointed out.

  ‘Yule is the ancient word for the winter solstice. The longest night of the year. Around December twenty-first. It’s a pagan festival. So that’s where the early Christian church decided to put Christmas.’

  ‘So that a bunch of witches would celebrate? Come on,’ said Ruth with a snort. ‘Aren’t you making yourselves out to be more important than you are?’

  ‘Now, absolutely. The church hasn’t been interested in us for hundreds of years, except maybe as firewood, as you know.’

  ‘What do you mean? As I know?’

  ‘You’ve written about the old beliefs. Many times. It runs through your poems.’

  ‘You’re reading too much into them, Joan of Arc,’ said Ruth.

  ‘I was hanged for living alone,

  for having blue eyes and a sunburned skin,

  and breasts.

  Whenever there’s talk of demons

  these come in handy.’

  Jeanne quoted the poem, searching Ruth’s face.

  ‘Are you saying Ruth’s a witch?’ asked Gabri.

  Jeanne tore her attention from the wizened old woman sitting bolt upright.

  ‘In the Wiccan beliefs most old women are the keepers of wisdom, of the medicines, of the stories. They’re the crones.’

  ‘Well, she does practice bitchcraft. Does that count?’ Gabri asked to roars of laughter and even Jeanne smiled.

  ‘There was a time when most people were pagans and celebrated the old ways. Yule and Eostar. The spring equinox. Easter. You do rituals?’ Jeanne asked Myrna.

  ‘Some. We celebrate the solstice and do some smudging. It’s a kind of hodgepodge of native and pagan beliefs.’

  ‘It’s a mess,’ said Ruth. ‘I went to a couple. Ended up stinking of sage smoke for two days. People in the pharmacy thought I’d smoked up.’

  ‘Sometimes the magic works,’ said Myrna to Clara with a laugh.

  ‘Dinner,’ Peter called from the kitchen. When they arrived he’d put the casseroles and stews and vegetables on the island along with plates. Clara and Beauvoir went around lighting the candles scattered throughout the kitchen so that by the time they’d taken their places it was like sitting in a darkened planetarium, filled with points of light.

  Their plates piled high with lamb stew and shepherd’s pie and fresh bread and smooth, fluffy mashed potatoes and baby beans, they tucked in, talking about gardens and the storm, about the Anglican Church Women and the condition of the roads.

  ‘I called Hazel to see if they could come tonight, but she said no,’ said Clara.

  ‘She almost always says no,’ said Myrna.

  ‘Is that true?’ asked Olivier. ‘I never noticed that.’

  ‘Neither had I,’ said Clara, helping herself to another spoonful of potatoes. ‘But now that I think of it, we wanted to take over dinners after Madeleine died but she wouldn’t hear of it.’


  ‘Some people are like that,’ said Myrna. ‘Always happy to help others, but they have difficulty accepting it. Too bad really. She must be having a horrible time. Can’t imagine the pain she’s in.’

  ‘What excuse did she give for not coming tonight?’ Olivier asked.

  ‘Said Sophie’d sprained her ankle,’ said Clara with a scowl. There were guffaws around the table. She turned to Gamache to explain. ‘Sophie’s always sick or injured in some way, at least as long as I’ve known her.’

  Gamache turned to Myrna. ‘What’s your thinking about that?’

  ‘Sophie? Easy. Attention-seeking. Jealous of Mom and Madeleine—’ She stopped, realizing what she was saying.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Gamache. ‘We’d already figured that one out. Sophie’s also lost weight recently.’

  ‘Tons,’ said Gabri. ‘But she bobs up and down. Lost weight a few years ago too but put it all back.’

  ‘Does it run in the family?’ asked Gamache. ‘Does Hazel’s weight change?’

  Again they looked at each other, except Ruth who stole a piece of bread from Olivier’s plate.

  ‘Hazel’s been the same as long as I remember,’ said Clara.

  Gamache nodded and sipped his wine. ‘Marvelous dinner, Peter. Thank you.’ He raised his glass to Peter, who acknowledged the compliment.

  ‘I thought for sure we’d be having game hens,’ said Olivier to Peter. ‘Isn’t that your party dish this year?’

  ‘But you aren’t guests,’ said Peter. ‘We only do that for real people.’

  ‘I think you’ve been hanging around Ruth,’ said Olivier.

  ‘Actually, we were going to make Rock Cornish game hens but we thought with your babies, you might not want to eat them,’ Peter said to Ruth.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Ruth seemed genuinely perplexed and Gamache wondered whether she’d forgotten her ducklings weren’t human, weren’t her actual babies.

  ‘So you wouldn’t mind if we ate poultry?’ Peter asked. ‘Or even Brume Lake duck? We were going to barbecue some confit du canard.’

  ‘Rosa and Lilium aren’t chickens and they aren’t ducks,’ said Ruth.